South Water Caye

Our destination for the day was South Water Caye, a relatively straightforward 5 nautical miles to the south, which is easy to find. It is possible to see it and I think most kayakers would find it by following the reef.
We were still interested in manatees though, so once again we crossed to Tobacco Range and like the day before our search was fruitless. Following the mangrove tour we crossed directly to Twin Caye. Although the Admiralty Chart of the area doesn’t show it, there is a navigable channel running north south through the Caye. In my limited experience it looked like perfect manatee territory but they clearly had other ideas and were elsewhere. We were rewarded with some great views of White Ibis though, a bird I am not certain I have seen before.
From Twin Caye we headed east towards South Water Caye, one of the most developed cayes in the area. There is a campsite on the island, which is being developed by Rich from New Jersey. Look for the green “Bamboo” sign and you have arrived.
There are 3 resorts on the Island so there is always the excuse to go in search of the bar at “Happy Hour”, there is also the possibility of finding food, but we decided to be self sufficient.
We went snorkelling to the south of South Water Caye and there is good snorkelling on the east side but it is not always easy to access the water. There were a number of private signs on the land and part of the beach was roped off with private signs. Not being able to walk along a section of beach because it is private is completely alien to somebody from the UK.
The one thing that was a pleasant surprise was the almost total lack of biting insects. We had travelled prepared with insect repellent, long sleeved shirts and trousers and they all stayed firmly in the dry bags. Shorts and t shirts are essential, the fleece has not been required so far, and neither is my lightweight sleeping bag. The silk liner is more than adequate. There is so much to learn about kayaking in the tropics!

More unsuccessful manatee spotting.at Tobacco RangeWherever we looked there were mangroves. It took some time to get used to the scale of the region. The mangroves are quite low so are actually closer than they appear.Nicky studying the sea bed close to Twin Caye. The water was incredibily clear at times we had a number of quite large rays swim under the kayak.Look for the sign and you have arrived. It is roughly half way along the east coast.The view from the tent was pretty perfect. The sunset over the Belize mainland was something pretty special.Just a lovely sport to relax and have a couple of cold beers. Although there are 3 resorts on the Island it didn’t appear to be that busy.

Share this:

Related

About Sea Paddler

The Sea Paddler website has been in existence in various forms since 1996. Initially as a site which provide a large amount of information about general sea kayaking. From about 2008 it functioned as a blog and now the aim is to provide a mixture of the two.
The focus was on sea kayaking in Jersey but has expanded into other geographical areas and different activities.

Recent Posts

Previous Posts

Categories

Error: Access Token is not valid or has expired. Feed will not update. This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

There's an issue with the Instagram Access Token that you are using. Please obtain a new Access Token on the plugin's Settings page.If you continue to have an issue with your Access Token then please see this FAQ for more information.